17 Movies That People Were SO Excited For...That Ended Up Being Legitimately Terrible

    "Afterwards, the best you could do was try to convince yourself that they weren't that bad. But deep down, you knew."

    Hannah Marder
    by Hannah Marder

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community about the movies that were SUPER hyped before they entered theaters...only for everyone to genuinely hate them upon actually seeing them. Here are 17 movies with wild hype that fell disastrously short.

    We also used some replies from these two Reddit threads.

    1. Suicide Squad

    "normal is a setting on a dryer. people like us, we don't get normal"
    Warner Bros.

    Suggested by u/moisebucks

    "That first trailer looked epic, quite dark like the Batman movies. Then the movie itself ended up being cheesy garbage."

    —u/SchoonerOclock

    "When it first got out, I was hellbent to see that movie. After it ended, I was feeling nauseous. It's ranked high in my list of mistakes."

    —u/grumpy_enraged_bear

    2. Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace

    Screenshots from "The Phantom Menace"
    Lucasfilm

    "The prequel Star Wars movies, especially the first. Those of us who were around to see them in theaters got SO FUCKING HYPED. It was the return of perhaps the greatest movie franchise of all time. But then you actually saw the movie. And afterwards, the best you could do was try to convince yourself that they weren't that bad. But deep down, you knew."

    —u/ivanthecurious

    "I had to go see Phantom Menace again because I just couldn't believe it was that bad and managed to convince myself that I must have had a headache and didn't realize it and been in a bad mood and been overly harsh on the movie...and then I saw it again, and it was that bad.

    I never saw the other two prequels. I couldn't get the taste of Phantom Menace out of my mouth."

    —u/themcp

    "I let a couple of my people take two days off from work to sit in line for tickets to the Phantom Menace, and naturally, they gave me a ticket, so I got to see it at midnight on opening night.

    I have NEVER been in a theater that was so hyped. When 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...' came up, they ROARED a cheer. At the end...not a peep."

    —u/cibman

    3. Also, Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens...and really all of the sequel trilogy

    Screenshots from "The Force Awakens"
    Lucasfilm

    "After watching the whole thing, it felt like retreads of the original. Decided not to rush for its sequels when they came out."

    —u/wave2earl

    "The prequels do have many problems. But at least they have a singular vision, and the overarching story is fine. And I now find them enjoyable in their own way. Because the story still holds them together enough to overlook the faults.

    The sequels are far worse. They are made by committee garbage. It's like some writing assignment where each person blindly writes a paragraph after each other with no plan at all to tell a compelling story or write real or interesting characters with clear motivations. And then papers over the whole mess with tons of nostalgia bait.

    The prequels are a big swing and a miss by a good hitter past his prime. The sequels are a brawl in the dugout with the players just hitting each other in the face."

    —u/TheForeverWar

    4. Mulan (the live-action version)

    Screenshots from both "Mulan" films
    Disney

    "The previews looked great."

    —u/ocularnervosa

    "The original was so good, and the music was the best part! I got through 15 minutes, and I turned it off."

    —u/tangibleadhd

    "They literally just...said....the lyrics...without singing them???"

    —u/vanishing27532

    "Of all the Disney live-action remakes, it was the one that had the most potential. A massive period war piece? That sounds awesome. But they removed a lot of what made the animated movie fun for 'realism' and then added magical components, completely undermining that reason as well as the overall message of the movie."

    —u/willstr1

    5. Thor: Love and Thunder

    Screenshots from "Thor: Love and Thunder"
    Marvel

    "Obnoxious humor and a villain that’s beyond underwhelming. Seriously. He has that absolutely sick death metal sword and does NOTHING. Kills a couple gods at the beginning.

    Imagine that scene with the gods all in one place — then he shows up and just fucking Red Weddings most of the gods there. It would be horrific. It would make him a terrifying threat. And it would make for great character scenes with Thor wrestling with the guilt of leading him to the gods. Christian Bale is a fine actor, and I did love the black and white scene, both aesthetically and for his acting. But he was wasted.

    We didn’t get that, but we did get screaming goats and that stupid fucking weird romance thing with Stormbreaker? Ugh."

    —u/zombiegamer723


    6. Spider-Man 3

    Screenshots from "Spider-Man 3"
    Sony Pictures Releasing

    "The whole dancing in the streets and jazz in the bar thing was ridiculous, but that's not what put me off from that movie. It's not the drama that put me off either; I've been a Spider-Man comic book reader since childhood, so I know romance and drama is a big and important part in the Spider-Man mythos.

    The thing is, the hype created by the trailers and promotional posters, sites, etc. was promising a much darker and action-packed movie. The trailers were all moody and eerie, with the whole Aunt May speech about revenge and the scenes of Peter desperately trying to get rid of the black suit, so I naturally expected a much darker film. ... The final fight was awesome, I can't deny that, but the rest of the movie was a little bit more lazily crafted. I was expecting more from that slowly building up tension that Spider-Man 2 gave us. Instead, the three-villain concept ran out of control, and things felt kind of rushed in. 

    And finally, this might sound dumb, but I also expected a lot more awesome acrobatics like Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man showcasing a lot more agility and mastery of his powers than he did on previous films, but there was not much of it either."

    —u/ExtraButterPopCorn

    7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

    Screenshots from "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"
    Paramount Pictures

    "In 2008, we weren't yet as used to the lifeless too-late-sequels and dull remakes that make up most of the dross coming out of Hollywood today, so it was genuinely disappointing."

    —u/kopiernudelfresser

    "That movie was soooooo bad. Especially given how perfect The Last Crusade is. We pretend it doesn’t exist to our kids."

    —u/EatMorePieDrinkMore

    8. Godzilla

    Screenshots from "Godzilla"
    TriStar Pictures/Toho

    "At the time, it was the biggest film release in history. Seven thousand screens around the world. Your tickets came in a special embossed green and black envelope with the film title emblazoned on the front. There was a countdown on MTV for when the film would open. The marketing was absolutely everywhere. And the big news was that you could not even see Godzilla until you saw the movie. You would just see a foot or a tail here and there in the marketing.

    Then the movie came out.........yeah."

    —enuffayohrshet

    "I remember when the audience attitude shifted opening night. Probably right around the time that they broke out the pregnancy tests...Yeesh."

    —monkeybuttmom

    "Yeah, and the baby Godzillas chasing everybody around Madison Square Garden, we're like what is this, Jurassic Park?!"

    —enuffayohrshet

    "Remember the several story-high billboards in Manhattan? Remember how it was from the director of Independence Day, a movie that we were all still high on? Remember everybody talking about the return of Matthew Broderick, our beloved Ferris Bueller, to the big screen? Remember Puffy's cover/sample of Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' from the soundtrack that was force-fed to us?

    Then, remember how shitty that movie was?"

    —u/SputtleTuts

    9. Wonder Woman 1984

    Screenshots from "Wonder Woman 1984"
    Warner Bros. Pictures

    "How was this the same director as the first Wonder Woman?! Disjointed, cheesy special effects, [and] too many plots, none of which were adequately developed."

    —usdfls

    "The only 'feminist' movie that had a literal cat fight in it. I felt embarrassed watching it."

    —u/SlateFrost

    10. Eragon

    Screenshots from "Eragon"
    20th Century Fox

    "Having absolutely devoured the first two books (at the time, then eventually the third and fourth), I was immeasurably disappointed in the movie."

    —u/Vinnyb1981

    "Back when I was 16 years old, my brother and I both loved the book and were ecstatic when the movie came out. We went to see it for my birthday. I remember distinctly leaning back in the movie theater chairs and looking down the aisle at my brother also leaning back looking at me and both of us having a look of confusion at just how much the movie changed from the book. We must have shared that look at least 20 different times throughout the course of the movie."

    —u/Frejian

    "I'm still mad about it. The books were amazing, and the whole bloody budget was spent on a stupid dragon that was barely on screen, missed key story elements, and made shit up that was completely unnecessary."

    —u/Faythlessly

    11. The Flash

    Screenshots from "The Flash"
    Warner Bros. Pictures

    Suggested by overthelove

    Maybe this is on me, but I genuinely thought this movie was going to be good. Warner Bros. and DC pushed it SO hard, despite all the Ezra Miller drama, that I thought it must actually be too good to let disappear. Plus, if nothing else, the movie featured the return of Michael Keaton!!!

    But the movie ended up being an awful CGI mess. It was mostly only good for the memes. The whole newborn-babies-falling-to-their-deaths-before-being-saved scene was actually so completely over the top (and the CGI babies were so bad!) that I felt like I must be watching some D-list horror movie and not one of the biggest superhero films of the year. Who even came up with that?!?

    12. Terminator Salvation

    Screenshot from "Terminator Salvation"
    Warner Bros. Pictures

    "I'd been waiting to see a Terminator movie that actually took place in the apocalyptic war in the future, and after the horrible Terminator 3, I was CONVINCED this was going to be the movie that saved the franchise. It had one of the best trailers ever, too, with Nine Inch Nails. I almost walked out of the theater, but I doggedly stayed 'til the end just to see if it would somehow get better... It didn't."

    —u/Badloss

    13. Jurassic World

    Screenshots from "Jurassic World"
    Universal Pictures

    "What a load of utter rubbish!"

    —u/DJ-KimJongFun

    "The film was so cringeworthy — the woman running around in high heels, the kids laughing after almost being eaten alive by one of the scariest animals to ever live, the awkward situations with the older son and the girls, the 'bad guys' taking over that control room and just happening to know how everything operated, the kissing scene in the middle of everyone getting massacred by dinosaurs...it was horrendous."

    —u/Toby95

    "The CGI looked three or four years old, the acting was terrible, and there was no real story. I never felt like any of the characters mattered, and every homage they made to the first movie felt forced."

    —u/DJ-KimJongFun

    "The thing I didn't like about it was how every character fit perfectly into a stereotype. The older brother who cares about nothing but girls and uses the phrase 'dorkbelt,' the younger brother who is super smart and knows all about dinosaurs, the successful stuck-up working woman, and the charismatic hunk who lives in the woods and drives motorcycles."

    —[deleted]

    14. And also Jurassic World: Dominion

    Screenshots from "Jurassic World: Dominion"
    Universal Pictures

    Suggested by u/exzlsior

    "Went to see a dinosaur movie and ended up seeing a movie about giant locusts."

    —u/Bfife22

    "Especially because the original cast returned! But even that seemed like a waste."

    —u/exzlsior

    15. Wild Wild West

    Screenshots from "Wild Wild West"
    Warner Bros. Pictures

    "People forget how HUGE of a star Will Smith was at one point. He was the highest paid actor and the highest grossing actor in the world — then came Wild Wild West. You know the movie was terrible when the soundtrack was better."

    —jamesarthurwrites

    16. Hocus Pocus 2

    Screenshots from "Hocus Pocus 2"
    Disney+

    "I had waited years for it, wanted something that continued the storyline, yearned for something that continued the lore, but NO, what I got was a ham-fisted, mediocre musical combined with bad Disney Channel-esque sitcom dialogue.

    They even retconned how the sisters became witches in the first place. The Sanderson Sisters were evil; that was the point of the first movie. They were fiend-worshipping women who wanted to steal the youth and vitality of children, killing those children in the process.

    Clumsy execution, awful writing, even worse direction, and MASSIVE overhyping led to a bitter disappointment of a movie. It could've been so, so much better."

    —SarahDaugherty

    17. And finally, The King's Man

    Screenshot from "The King's Man"
    20th Century Studios

    "I love the first two films — I even have a Kingsman tattoo — and was super excited for the prequel, really loved the idea of learning more about this spy society and seeing adventures with it in the past. Instead I got such a dull movie, with an unlikable protagonist and such a dumb twist. The action scenes, still very cool, but otherwise, I was so let down."

    —constanvee

    What movie was super-hyped that you ended up hating? Let us know in the comments!

    Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.